Varun not to campaign in Rae Bareli, Amethi

TNNApr 29, 2004, 01.14am IST

NEW DELHI: Varun Gandhi, a grandson of the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, said on Wednesday that he will not campaign for the ruling party in districts where his cousin, Rahul, and aunt, Sonia, are running for Parliament on the opposition Congress' tickets. Gandhi, 23, who is too young to be a candidate himself, joined the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in April.

He has been campaigning for it and against the Congress, the party of his ancestors, during India's three-week-long elections spread over four phases.

In an interview to NDTV broadcast on Wednesday, Varun said he was avoiding the two northern Indian constituencies —Rae Bareli and Amethi — from where Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, were seeking to be elected in the third phase of voting, which gets underway on May 5, '03.

Asked if he was avoiding campaigning in the two constituencies in Uttar Pradesh to limit unpleasantness in the family, Gandhi told the interviewer, "Yes ... because I feel that the family is more important than politics." Varun Gandhi acknowledged he had spoken recently to Rahul, but he declined to elaborate. "I don't speak about family," he said.

He then added, "Young people must come forward from every party, every stream of thought and must earn their stripes. Leadership is earned, not inherited."

"At the moment, I'm with the BJP to stay," he said.

Varun mentioned that his father, Sanjay, Indira Gandhi's younger son, had represented Amethi where Rahul is seeking election in his first political outing.

The seat was won in the last elections, in 1999, by Sonia Gandhi, whose husband, the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, had also run from that constituency when he entered Parliament.

Sonia has sought election this year from neighbouring Rae Bareli, which Indira Gandhi had held three times during her political career.